That's why I say that people have their failings, they make mistakes, whether they're learned men or just damned fools who don't know any better. Why, even cabinet ministers can make mistakes."

The commission of medical authorities which had to decide whether Schweik's standard of intelligence did, or did not, conform to all the crimes with which he was charged, consisted of three extremely serious gentlemen with views which were such that the view of each separate one of them differed considerably from the views of the other two.

They represented three distinct schools of thought with regard to mental disorders.

If in the case of Schweik a complete agreement was reached between these diametrically opposed scientific camps, this can be explained simply and solely by the overwhelming impression produced upon them by Schweik who, on entering the room where his state of mind was to be examined and observing a picture of the Austrian ruler hanging on the wall, shouted : "Gentlemen, long live our Emperor, Franz Josef the First."

The matter was completely clear. Schweik's spontaneous utterance made it unnecessary to ask a whole lot of questions, and there remained only some of the most important ones, the answers to which were to corroborate Schweik's real opinion, thus :

"Is radium heavier than lead?"

"I've never weighed it, sir," answered Schweik with his sweet smile.

"Do you believe in the end of the world?"

"I have to see the end of the world first," replied Schweik in an offhand manner, "but I'm sure it won't come my way tomorrow."

"Could you measure the diameter of the globe?"

"No, that I couldn't, sir," answered Schweik, "but now I'll ask you a riddle, gentlemen. There's a three-storied house with eight windows on each story. On the roof there are two gables and two chimneys. There are two tenants on each story. And now, gentlemen, I want you to tell me in what year the house porter's grandmother died?"

The medical authorities looked at each other meaningly, but nevertheless one of them asked one more question :

"Do you know the maximum depth of the Pacific Ocean?"

"I'm afraid I don't, sir," was the answer, "but it's pretty sure to be deeper than what the river is just below Prague."

The chairman of the commission curtly asked, "Is that enough?" But one member inquired further:

"How much is 12897 times 13863?"

"729," answered Schweik without moving an eyelash.

"I think that's quite enough," said the chairman of the commission. "You can take this prisoner back to where he came from."

"Thank you, gentlemen," said Schweik respectfully, "it's quite enough for me, too."

After his departure the three experts agreed that Schweik was an obvious imbecile in accordance with all the natural laws discovered by mental specialists.

The report submitted to the examining judge contained, among other remarks, the following passage :

The undersigned medical authorities base themselves upon the complete mental deficiency and congenital cretinism of Josef Schweik who was brought before the above-mentioned commission and who expressed himself in terms such as "Long Live our Emperor Franz Josef the First," a remark which completely suffices to demonstrate Josef Schweik's state of mind as an obvious imbecile. The undersigned commission therefore makes the following recom-

mendations: I. The proceedings against Josef Schweik should be suspended. 2. Josef Schweik should be removed to a mental clinic for observation purposes and to ascertain how far his mental state is dangerous to his surroundings.

While this report was being drawn up, Schweik was explaining to his fellow-prisoners: "They didn't worry about Ferdinand. All they did was to crack some jokes with me about radium and the Pacific Ocean. In the end we decided that what we'd talked to each other about was quite enough, and then we said good-bye."

"I trust nobody," remarked the little misshapen man on whose field they had dug up a skeleton. "They're all a pack of shysters."

"If you ask me, it's just as well they are," said Schweik, lying down on the straw mattress. "If all people wanted to do all the others a good turn, they'd be walloping each other in a brace of shakes."

4.

Schweik Is Ejected from the Lunatic Asylum.

When Schweik later on described life in the lunatic asylum, he did so in terms of exceptional eulogy : "I'm blowed if I can make out why lunatics kick up such a fuss about being kept there. They can crawl about stark naked on the floor, or caterwaul like jackals, or rave and bite. If you was to do anything like that in the open street, it'd make people stare, but in the asylum it's just taken as a matter of course. Why, the amount of liberty there is something that even the socialists have never dreamed of. The inmates can pass themselves off as God Almighty or the Virgin Mary or the Pope or the King of England or our Em-

peror or St. Vaclav, although the one who did him was properly stripped and tied up in solitary confinement. There was a chap there who kept thinking that he was an archbishop, but he did nothing but guzzle. And then there was another who said he was St. Cyril and St. Methodus, just so that he could get double helpings of grub. One fellow was in the family way and invited everyone to the christening. There were lots of chess players, politicians, fishermen and scouts, stamp collectors and photographers and painters there. They used to keep one man always in a strait-waistcoat, to stop him from calculating when the end of the world was coming. Everybody can say what he likes there, the first thing that comes into his head, just like in parliament. The noisiest of the lot was a chap who said he was the sixteenth volume of the encyclopaedia and asked everybody to open him and find an article on sewing machines or else he'd be done for.